Lead Stories
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In Santa Ana, California, Correen Zahnzinger, 24, filed a lawsuit in May against her husband of one year, Valerie Inga, 29, for pretending to be a man. “They did have a sexual relationship,” said Zahnzinger’s attorney, “but I’m not allowed to say how it was perpetrated.” And two weeks earlier in Arlington, Virginia, Margaret Hunter, 24, was awarded $264,000 in her lawsuit for fraud against her ex-husband, Holly Anne Groves, 26, who had posed as a man and married Hunter in 1996.
The Democratic Process
In a March New York Times story on vote-buying in Dodge County, Georgia, a spokesperson for the Georgia secretary of state tried to describe the depth of the problem, explaining, “We literally had people who said they had no idea that selling your vote was illegal. One guy said, ‘It’s my vote; I can do what I want with it.’”
Actor Woody Harrelson was among the recipients of the American Lung Association’s “Thumbs Up” motion-picture awards, presented at Oscar time in March to honor those films and characters who present an antismoking image. Harrelson was honored for his role in The People vs. Larry Flynt, in which his character discourages his wife from smoking. In the movie both Flynts are addicted to illegal drugs.
In April authorities on North Carolina’s Figure Eight island said they suspected the cause of the fire that destroyed the vacation home of R.J. Reynolds president Andrew J. Schindler was a lighted cigarette butt. And after a New Year’s Day domestic argument in Campinas, 60 miles north of Sao Paulo, Brazil, police said Silas Leite da Silva was Bobbittized by his wife because, among other reasons, he would not stop smoking at home.
